This one’s from the archives. It’s my review of NetNewsWire 3.1 from almost 6 years ago:

For the basic user who checks a few feeds once a day, NNW provides a familiar and friendly environment. For an average user who has several dozen feeds to keep up on, NNW is quick and effective. And even the power user, who lives and breaths inside their feed reader, will discover that NNW has the horsepower to feed their need for feeds.

This was the very first in-depth review I ever wrote for this site. And even now NNW 3.x has remained one of my most-used apps all this time.

In fact, the latest version of NNW (beta of 4 not withstanding) is almost identical to version 3.1 that I reviewed, except that 3.2 added support for Google Reader as a sync engine. That speaks a lot to the quality and longevity of NNW. How many apps are you using today that could stand the test of time so well with so little change?

Amidst all the kerfuffle of Google Reader alternatives, I thought long and hard about continuing my use of NNW 3 on the Mac and just turning off the Google sync. But I check feeds from my iPhone and iPad far too often and the overlap of unread items would drive me nuts.

And I know I’m not the only one. This weekend a lot of us will say goodbye to an old friend. You’ll forgive me if I’m a little sentimental, but if you’ve been reading this site for longer than a day you know I’ve got an affinity for fine software.

So… Cheers to what was arguably the most popular desktop feed reader ever, and what is certainly one of the greatest of the greats among Mac apps.